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John Lilly

Partner at Greylock, Greylock Partners

Search every verified John Lilly interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. John Lilly, a partner at Greylock, recently appeared on two podcasts where he discussed his career, investing philosophy, and views on AI. On the Truth Works podcast, he recounted an investment in Instagram, noting that Greylock invested at a $500 million valuation and that the company was sold to Facebook for $1.2 billion three days after the money was wired. He also described his approach to evaluating founders, emphasizing the importance of non-defensiveness, a desire to improve, and a willingness to step outside one's comfort zone. In a conversation with Reid Hoffman on The General Podcast, Lilly discussed the future of AI, stating that "none of this is settled" and that outcomes are "all to play for," countering what he described as a "defeatist era of technology determinism." He also offered advice for CEOs, saying they should serve on at least one high-quality board for perspective, and encouraged entrepreneurs to regularly meet with extraordinary people. Additionally, he mentioned working with Mike Schroepfer on the climate investing fund Gigascale and expressed interest in discussing capital requirements for climate companies and the use of AI agents.

Recent appearances

Notable quotes

“I think we're living in this like fairly defeatist era like of technology determinism where it feels like Dario or Sam or Sundar are calling all the shots like those guys are in charge. They're going to define what we get and how AI works and all this stuff. And what I would say is that none of this is settled. It's all to play for. And so things that look sure one day turn out not to be sure the next day. And so I w”

“We invested at a $500 million valuation, you know, we went through, they went through a super high growth period and then while we were doing legal and docs and that kind of stuff, I think we wired the money on a Thursday. Kevin called me that Sunday, 3 days later and said, 'Hey, funny story, uh, we're just we're selling to Facebook for $1.2 billion.' So, it's like a 4 day a 4 day four day flip in a double when it wa”

“AI is changing everything. I would say that more has changed over the last even like 200 days than I think probably any other time in my career. I'm an old guy now. I'm 55 and so like I've seen a fair amount of stuff like I just can't remember anytime it's changed like this. Two or three years ago it was obvious that LLMs in particular, large language models in particular that OpenAI and Anthropic were built on were ”

“The truth is entrepreneurs are the sun, investors are the moon. So investors are only reflected light relative to entrepreneurs. And it's easy to get this turned around and say, 'Oh, well capital allocation is the main thing.' But it's not. Building the thing is the main thing.”

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